Mar 26, 2013

Garofalo not having good day on the twitter; or, Associate Justice Wright as the invisible woman

Twitter usually isn't a dangerous place for Representative Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington), who typically risks being mistaken for the better-known Pat Garofalo, former Economic Policy Editor for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund who now works in U.S. News & World Report‘s opinion section as an Assistant Editor.

Today, his reputation as a lawmaker may be eclipsed by his failure as a twitter legal eagle with a series of egregiously mean and misinformed posts about Governor Dayton's selection of David Lillehaug as a state supreme court justice. Perhaps the worst goof was claiming gender discrimination on Dayton's part, while failing to acknowledge Wilhelmina Wright, the governor's first appointment to the state's highest court.

David Lillehaug, a Minneapolis attorney and former U.S. attorney for
Minnesota, will be appointed today to fill the upcoming vacancy on the
Minnesota Supreme Court. . . .

Lillehaug is currently a partner with the downtown Minneapolis law firm
of Fredrikson and Byron, specializing in real estate law and what the
lawyers call "complex litigation." He has been very active in DFL
politics including, notably, legal work on the high-profile recounts
surrounding the election of both Sen. Al Franken in 2008 (which included
final argumentsw before the state Supreme Court on which he will now
serve) and Gov. Dayton in 2010. . . .

Lillehaug was also a finalist for the Supreme Court vacancy that Dayton
filled last year with the appointment of Wilhelmina Wright, who had been
a member of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. . .

Garofalo apparently didn't see Wright swearing in the new speaker in January (photo above and here at MPR). Rough to be in the minority.

Here's the series of unfortunate tweets. The worst, in which he fails to recognize the gender of the first Dayton appointment, has now been deleted:

With Dayton's new appointment to MN Supreme Court, there is now only 1 woman on the court - Chief Justice Lorie Gildea